The Twitter account of Richard Grenell, a Fox News commentator and Palm Springs resident who was nominated by President Trump to represent the United States in Germany, was a subject of conversation in the Senate on Wednesday during an otherwise formal and policy-driven gathering.

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting, Conn. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, spoke highly of Grenell’s past experience as a diplomat — he served as a U.S. spokesman to the United Nations — but highlighted old tweets he'd sent about the appearances of women who are in the public spotlight.

One of those read: “Hillary [Clinton] is starting to look [like] Madeline Albright.”

Murphy said he had concerns about Grenell’s style and asked Grenell whether he regretted the statements.

“It’s certainly never my intentions to hurt anyone’s feelings,” Grenell responded, saying he regretted the times in which his attempt at humor turned out to be not so humorous.

Multiple media outlets reported in 2012, while Grenell was working as an adviser to the Romney presidential campaign, that he’d deleted a significant number of tweets, including the one about Clinton.

Grenell said he viewed his career in “two different phases,” and in his capacity as a diplomat, “I understood that when you’re speaking as a U.S. official, it’s not your opinion that you’re pushing, but it is a well thought-out policy.”

He promised to keep his personal opinions out of the task ahead of him.

Grenell’s nomination comes at a crucial moment in the relations between the two countries, and so much of the talk Wednesday focused on economic prosperity and defense. Grenell said he was looking forward to a Commerce Department report on the the trade deficit. He echoed the president when he vowed to work with the German government “to increase the pace at which Germany moves to meet its commitments to NATO.”

When pressed by Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, another Democrat, about Vladimir Putin’s increasingly aggressive posture towards Europe and Russia’s violations of an intermediate-range nuclear missiles treaty, Grenell said a unified western alliance consisting of Britain, France and Germany was essential.

“Russia must be stopped,” he said.

Grenell, an openly gay man, was joined by his partner, Matt Lashey, who sat behind him during the hearing.

Editor's note: an earlier version of this story misidentified Markey's state.

This article is part of the Insider column, a weekly roundup of political and public policy news. The full column runs every Sunday in The Desert Sun. Reach the author at jesse.marx@desertsun.com and @marxjesse on Twitter.